Becoming a More Effective Research Mentor for Your Trainees: Undergraduates to Post-docs

Workshop

Sunday, Jan 08, 2012, 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Room 18B

Whether formal or informal, mentoring relationships are an important part of every scientist's career. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed, field-tested, and publicly released research mentor training materials for several STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines, including astronomy and physics. The topics of the training seminar cover expectations, communication, independence, diversity, understanding, and ethics. This half day AAS workshop will introduce participants to the mentor training program, plus show them how to obtain and use the free materials for self study or for use in seminars at their institutions. Participants will then delve into three of the seminar's main topics through case studies. The AAS workshop, like the mentoring seminar itself, will have a strong emphasis on group discussions and will provide time for personal reflection and short writing activities. The goal is for participants to leave with improved mentoring skills and a good sense of how the mentor training seminar operates. The workshop will include a break after the overview and the first case study discussion, at which point anyone who has time for only an introduction to the seminar can leave at a natural and convenient break point.